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TE  NORMAL  SCHOOL  BULLETIN 


SERIES  II  .     NO.  3 


A  STUDY  IN  CURRENT  PEDAGOGY. 


STATE 
NORMAL  SCHOOL 


OF  COLORADO 


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FEBRUARY. 1903 


Published  Quarterly  by  the  Trustees  of  the  State  Normal  School 
of  Colorado,  Greeley,  Colo. 

Entered  at  the  Postoffice,  Greeley,  Colorado,  as  second-class  matter. 


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'»•-         •• 


STATE  NORMAL  SCHOOL  BULLETIN. 

Series  II.    No.  3. 


Methods  of  Teaching 
Truth-Telling  and  Lying 


A  STUDY 

BY  T.  R.  CROSWELL,  PH.  D., 
Superintendent  of  the  Training  School. 


THE  LIBRARY  OF  THE 

DEC  9-1? 

UNIVERSITY  OF  I! 


PREFACE. 


This  paper  was  prepared  to  be  read  at  the  State  Teachers' 
Association,  but  is  presented  as  a  bulletin  of  the  school  for 
the  following  reasons:  Because  of  the  interest  with  which  it 
was  received  by  people  from  different  parts  of  the  State ;  be- 
cause it  represents  in  its  conclusion  the  general  attitude  of 
the  professional  work  of  this  School  as  shown  in  the  teaching 
of  the  philosophy  of  education,  psychology  and  method,  viz. : 
an  attempt  to  treat  the  child  intelligently  and  sympathetic- 
ally, and  finally,  because  it  shows  the  nature  of  some  of  the 
work  actually  done  in  the  classes  of  the  School. 

The  topic  of  the  study,  "The  attitude  of  children  toward 
truth,"  was  suggested  by  Superintendent  Clark  of  Central 
City,  the  President  of  the  Child  Study  section  of  the  State 
Teachers'  Association.  The  different  classes  then  participated 
and  aided  in  the  development  of  the  study.  First,  the  class 
in  elective  pedagogy  exchanged  their  own  experiences,  and 
discussed  them  in  an  informal  and  conversational  manner. 
This  preliminary  study  was  made  the  basis  for  the  following 
questions : 

The  Attitude  of  Children  Toward  Truth. 

I.  As  a  child  did  you  ever  have  a  special  reputation  for 

truthfulness  ?   Age  ? 

II.  For  telling  falsehoods?   Age? 


IV.  STATE    NORMAL    SCHOOL, 

III.  Give  reasons  why  you  were  especially  careful  about 
the  truth,  e.  g.}  because  of  previous  commendation 
for  truthfulness,  shame,  of  some  maxim,  quotation 
or  stor}',  sympathetic  attitude  of  elders,  fear  of  later 
detection,  fear  of  God  or  some  supernatural  form  of 
punishment,  etc. 

IV.  Give  reasons  why  you  told  falsehoods,  e.  g.,  fear  of 
punishment,  of  displeasure  of  some  one,  through 
imitation  of  some  one  you  admired,  to  attract  at- 
tention, to  shield  another,  through  loyalty  to  a 
group,  etc. 

V.  Were  there  periods  when  you  were  extremely  careful 
to  tell  the  truth  followed  by  the  opposite  ?  Can  you 
explain  such? 

VI.  Were  there  any  kinds  of  falsehoods  which  as  a 
child  you  considered  justified,  e.  g.,  to  strangers,  if 
accompanied  by  some  mental  reservation,  etc.  ? 

VII.  Give  an  incident  which  will  illustrate  your  atti- 
tude as  a  child  toward  truth. 

Then  one  recitation  period  with  all  members  of  the 
junior  and  senior  seminars  was  given  over  to  the  dictation  of 
these  questions,  followed  by  a  general  discussion  to  bring  the 
whole  problem  clearly  before  the  student.  Before  the  next 
weekly  seminar  the  answers  were  written  out. 

Every  effort  was  made  to  secure  the  frankest  statements. 
To  this  end  as  many  volunteer  experiences  were  given  in  the 
recitation  as  the  time  allowed,  and  all  were  assured  that  any- 
thing personal  in  their  papers  would  be  considered  confiden- 


GREELEY,    COLORADO. 


tial  and  no  names  made  public.  The  result  was  an  unusually 
valuable  collection  of  papers  dealing  with  the  early  experi- 
ences of  several  hundred  young  people. 

The  results  were  checked  still  further  by  comparison 
with  similar  returns  secured  from  the  Normal  High  School, 
from  Colorado  College  and  elsewhere. 

In  working  up  the  material  in  a  limited  time  allowance 
it  seemed  best  to  omit  many  of  the  questions,  and  to  confine 
the  study  to  those  answers  illustrating  the  conditions  under 
which  most  of  these  young  people  had  been  trained  to  habits 
of  truthfulness  or  falsehood.  Their  experience  is,  probably, 
not  very  different  from  that  of  the  average  American  child. 


METHODS  OF   TEACHING  TRUTH-TELLING 
AND  LYING. 


Like  all  virtues  and  vices,  truth-telling  and  lying  in  the 
very  young  child  are  zero.  In  the  course  of  normal  develop- 
ment both  appear  later. 

The  child  will,  under  ordinary  circumstances,  tell  the 
truth  to  parent  or  teacher,  provided  neither  it  nor  the  parent 
nor  the  teacher  has  been  spoiled.  Whether  the  truth  or  a  lie 
is  told  in  a  given  case  depends  very  largely  upon  the  way  in 

which  the  child  fore-reads  the  probable  attitude  of  the  adult 
toward  him. 

A  spoiled  grown-up,  a  man  or  woman  who  has  lost  the 
grasp  of  childish  motives  and  fails  to  sympathize  with  child- 
ren's immaturity  and  weakness,  will  quickly  and  surely  de- 
velop in  any  child  the  ability  to  lie  and  to  do  it  skilfully. 
Many  parents  and  teachers  become  as  expert  in  forcing  the 
child  into  this  state  as  the  child  becomes  adept  in  his  part. 

On  the  other  hand,  many  parents  and  teachers  are  as 
steadily  directing  the  development  of  the  child  to  habits  of 
truthfulness. 

In  this  paper  I  shall  endeavor  to  show  some  of  the  teach- 
ings which  tend  to  develop  these  habits — to  strengthen  or 
weaken  this  side  of  one's  moral  character. 


8  STATE    NORMAL    SCHOOL, 

After  a  careful  preliminary  study  of  the  subject  with  my 
elective  class,  a  questionnaire  was  prepared,  inquiring  into  the 
personal  experience  of  each  individual.  The  substance  of 
these  questions  may  be  summed  up  thus : 

Did  you  at  any  time  have  a  special  reputation  for  telling 
the  truth  or  lying  ? 

What  were  your  reasons  for  doing  each? 

Give  experiences  illustrating  your  previous  answers  ? 

Tabulated,  these  returns  would  mean  very  little;  quoted, 
to  give  the  spirit,  and  studied,  to  show  widespread  tendencies, 
they  are  extremely  valuable. 

As  a  rule  children  are  not  notoriously  conspicuous 
on  either  side  of  the  truth  line:  though  many  children  for- 
tunately are  very  generally  trusted  by  their  friends,  while  an 
equal  number,  to  their  great  detriment,  are  as  frequently 
doubted.    You  all  know  plenty  of  children  of  both  classes. 

As  an  example  of  a  truthful  child,  I  give  the  following 
experience  of  a  little  girl : 

"As  a  child  I  had  no  special  reputation  for  telling  the 
truth,  but  my  impression  now  is  that  every  one  of  those  whom 
I  knew  just  knew  that  I  would  tell  the  truth,  which  I  did.  I 
was  careful  about  the  truth  because  my  parents  just  directed 
it,  I  don't  know  how.  I  don't  remember  being  told  anything 
about,  'Be  sure  you  tell  the  truth/  I  guess  it  didn't  occur  to 
me  not  to  tell  the  truth." 

Though  there  were  a  few  other  persons  who  were  unable 
to  recall  any  special  reason  which  held  them  to  the  truth 
under  trying  conditions,  the  majority  were  able  so  to  recall 
their  early  training  that  they  could  very  definitely  assign  the 
general  reason. 


GREELEY,    COLORADO.  9 

Most  of  their  motives  may  be  classed  under  the  general 
heads  of  fear,  responsibility,  love,  ideals  furnished  by  pre- 
vious teaching,  and  imitation  of  other  persons.  As  nearly  all 
of  these  reasons  indicate  teaching,  direct  or  indirect,  we  will 
proceed  to  a  study  of  the  way  the  average  citizens  attempt  to 
teach  their  children  to  be  truthful. 

Of  all  motives  used  that  of  fear  in  some  form  is  the  most 
universal.  It  may  be  simply  the  fear  of  "the  bad  man"  at 
the  age  of  4  or  6,  or  at  a  later  period  a  fear  of  some  big,  angry 
man  up  in  the  sky,  called  God,  who  delights  to  burn  and  pun- 
ish little  boys  and  girls  who  do  not  tell  the  truth.  In  some 
cases  the  fear  is  simply  of  displeasing  or  paining  a  kind 
mother  or  father. 

You  are  all  familiar  with  the  method  of  teaching  truth 
which  the  next  experience  illustrates : 

"One  reason  I  was  so  careful  about  telling  the  truth  was 
because  if  my  folks  would  suspect  I  was  going  to  tell  a  lie 
about  anything  they  would  remind  me  of  Washington  and  his 
father,  and  how  Washington  escaped  punishment  by  telling 
the  truth." 

Here  is  the  same  method  slightly  changed :  "My  mother 
used  to  tell  of  a  certain  time  in  her  childhood  when  she  told 
a  falsehood  and  was  severely  whipped.  This  story  always 
seemed  to  work  wonders  on  me,  as  I  often  used  to  think  of  it, 
and  think  what  if  I  told  a  falsehood  and  got  caught." 

But  the  expected  punishment  is  not  always  so  concrete  as 
a  whipping.    Another  girl  writes : 

"I  heard  my  mother  talk  about  people  who  told  lies  and 
it  always  caused  them  trouble.  This  made  an  impression 
upon  me  that  it  never  paid  to  tell  falsehoods.  I  would  always 
suffer  for  it  somehow." 


10  STATE    NORMAL    SCHOOL, 

This  somehow  is  shown  most  concretely  and  vividly  in  a 
few  of  the  experiences  in  which  some  supernatural  agency 
was  expected  to  avenge  the  awful  crime  of  the  little  child. 

"I  was  taught,"  writes  a  modest  little  girl,  "that  God 
would  know  all  about  it  and  somehow  I  should  surfer  if  I 
told  anything  but  the  truth." 

More  concrete  yet  is  the  following  experience:  "Be- 
tween the  age  of  seven  and  ten  I  was  specially  careful  about 
telling  the  truth  because  of  fear  of  God,  whom  I  imagined 
was  a  great  big  man,  almost  like  a  giant,  and  of  whom  I  was 
deathly  afraid.  I  feared  if  I  did  not  tell  the  truth,  that  God 
would  shut  me  up  in  a  dark  place.  Another  reason  was  that 
I  thought  everyone  knew  when  I  was  telling  a  falsehood  be- 
cause I  had  been  told  that  every  time  I  uttered  a  falsehood 
God  wrote  the  word  liar  across  my  forehead  so  that  people 
would  know  that  I  told  falsehoods.  I  outgrew  the  above  rea- 
sons for  truth-telling  when  about  eleven  years  old,  and  when 
necessary  told  falsehoods:  primarily  for  fear  of  punishment, 
and  very  often  to  shield  some  one." 

Another  girl  "had  very  real  ideas  of  God's  punishment. 
I  believed  implicitly,"  she  writes,  "that  every  time  I  told  a  lie 
a  black  spot  would  come  on  my  heart.  I  could  actually  feel  it. 
This  often  kept  me  to  the  truth." 

Still  another  girl  writes:  "When  I  was  about  four  or 
five  years  old  I  was  told  that  God  did  not  like  little  girls  who 
did  not  tell  the  truth.  And  that  He  built  a  big  fire  in  the 
west  in  the  evening,  and  the  children  who  told  lies  were  likely 
to  be  burned  in  this  big  fire.    So  I  was  afraid  to  tell  lies." 

One  more  illustration  of  fear  of  supernatural  punishment ; 
"All  through  my  life,  I  have  had  a  horror  of  the  end  of  the 


GREELEY,    COLORADO.  11 

world.  This  fear  was  intensified  by  frequent  dreams  which  I 
had,  and  which  made  the  mental  picture  which  I  had  of  the 
judgment  day  much  stronger.  Because  of  the  terrible  experi- 
ences which  I  underwent  in  these  dreams,  my  fear  of  lying  be- 
came greater,  and  although  I  lost  some  of  that  fear  after  my 
twelfth  year,  yet  it  has  never  entirely  left  me.  At  the  age  of 
twelve  I  developed  the  habit  of  falsifying  through  imitating  a 
girl  a  little  older  than  myself.  She  prided  herself  in  telling 
most  unheard  of  stories.  *  *  I  used  to  think  it  was  great  fun 
to  tell  great  'whoppers'  for  the  benefit  of  my  schoolmates.  I 
was  not  real  sure  that  this  was  justifiable,  so  I  kept  my  hand 
on  my  neck,  mentally  repeating :  'In  the  neck — in  the  neck/  I 
usually  corrected  the  false  impressions  later." 

Somewhat  akin  to  the  teaching  just  described  is  the  over- 
emphasis of  the  enormity  of  the  child's  offense ;  some  children 
being  taught  that  "it  is  a  crime  to  lie" ;  that  "a  lie  is  the 
vilest  thing." 

One  little  girl  thought  "lying  was  as  bad  as  stealing. 
*  *  I  never  was  praised  for  telling  the  truth,"  she  writes, 
"but  in  the  lie  I  told  my  mother  and  afterwards  confessed,  she 
talked  to  me  until  I  felt  as  though  I  hardly  ought  to  live." 

A  gentleman  of  my  acquaintance  was  extremely  truthful 
because  he  considered  lying  about  as  bad  as  murder. 

A  young  man  writes  that  "The  fib  which  stands  out  most 
in  my  memory  was  in  regard  to  a  toy  pistol.  I  traded  for  an 
'agate'  marble  and  told  my  father  that  it  had  been  given  me. 
When  my  father  found  out  the  falsehood  he  refused  to  speak 
to  me  for  two  days.  Those  two  days  were  the  most  miserable 
of  my  existence." 

Some  children  appear  to  find  their  strongest  motive  in 
the  fear  of  hurting  the  feelings  of  father  or  mother.     Some- 


12 


times  the  parents  are  over-anxious  about  the  misdemeanors  of 
a  little  child.  Thus  a  little  girl  of  six  took  fifty  cents  which 
belonged  to  another,  and  then  said  that  she  found  it,  and,  un- 
til closely  questioned,  denied  the  facts.  The  mother  in  her 
anxiety  over  her  child  threw  herself  on  the  bed  and  wept. 
The  lesson  from  this  scene  remained  with  the  child  as  a  re- 
straining influence. 

A  formal  method  followed  very  widely  to  teach  truthful- 
ness is  the  use  of  stories  and  quotations.  The  following 
stories  have  been  reported  as  having  had  a  restraining  in- 
fluence upon  different  persons :  Washington  and  the  Cherry 
Tree,  Ananias  and  Sapphira,  The  Boy  and  the  Wolf,  and 
various  selections  from  different  school  readers. 

Of  the  quotations  given  those  that  are  positive  in  their 
teaching  appear  to  be  most  valuable.  Thus  on  the  negative 
side  we  find  only : 

"Never  tell  a  lie,  my  boy." 
"Thou  shalt  not  lie,"  and 

"Be  sure  your  sin  will  find  you  out,"  while  the  following 
are  progressively  positive  in  their  teaching : 

"Honesty  is  the  best  policy." 
"Always  speak  the  truth." 

"Never  tell  a  lie,  my  boy; 

Always  speak  the  truth. 
If  at  work  or  if  at  play, 

Always  speak  the  truth." 

"I  would  rather  be  right  than  President  of  the  United 
States." 

"Do  right  because  it  is  right/' 


GREELEY,    COLORADO.  13 

One  girl  says :  "I  was  greatly  influenced  during  the 
early  part  of  ray  sixth  year  by  a  little  verse  in  our  first  reader 
which  ran  thus: 

"Speak  the  truth  and  speak  it  ever, 
Cost  it  what  it  may, 
He  who  hides  the  wrong  he  did, 
Does  the  wrong  thing  still." 

One  girl  reports  that  "at  about  ten  a  quotation  given  by 
the  teacher  made  more  impression  than  anything  had  before. 
It  was  given  and  explained  thoroughly.    *    * 

'For  whatever  men  say  in  their  blindness, 

Despite  the  fancies  of  youth, 
There  is  nothing  so  kingly  as  kindness, 

And  nothing  so  royal  as  truth/  n 

The  last  citations  have  shown  the  helpful  influence  of  the 
school;  in  the  next  two  we  have  examples  of  unsympathetic 
teachers  and  of  lost  opportunities : 

"A  teacher  I  had,"  writes  a  Normal  School  girl,  "always 
asked  at  the  close  of  day  how  many  had  talked.  I  thought  it 
my  duty  to  tell  the  truth,  but  finding  that  very  few  did,  I 
resolved  to  do  the  same.  One  day,  therefore,  when  she  asked, 
I  vowed  that  I  would  not  get  up,  but  sit  still  as  if  I  had  not 
talked.  When  she  asked,  however,  I  could  not  sit  still,  but 
had  to  get  up.  I  told  her  I  had  talked  all  day.  This  never- 
theless, had  no  good  effect  upon  her,  for  she  kept  me  later 
than  ever." 

A  similar  experience  belonged  to  another  girl.  "It  was 
once  asked  at  school  who  had  been  whispering  as  we  were 
marching  at  2  :30  p.  m.    I  had  been  the  offender,  and  although 


14 

I  could  have  remained  quiet  and  the  teacher  would  have  been 
none  the  wiser,  I  told  her,  and  as  a  consequence  I  had  to 
stand  up  in  front  of  the  whole  school.  I  had  been  struggling 
to  get  100  in  deportment,  and  knew  that  I  could  not  get  it 
then,  and  I  was  very  much  broken  up  about  it.  I  was  always 
very  sensitive  and  bashful,  and  always  shrunk  from  doing 
anything  to  attract  attention." 

Conscious  imitation  of  others  leading  to  habits  of  truth- 
fulness seems  comparatively  rare,  though  there  are  a  number 
of  cases  mentioned  where  the  example  of  an  upright  father 
or  older  brother,  or  of  truthful  playmates,  has  been  recog- 
nized as  having  a  strong  influence. 

Of  all  the  attempts  to  guide  the  child  toward  truthful 
habits  the  two  following  examples  seem  to  me  wisest  and  most 
sympathetic : 

"I  was  always  taught  that  it  was  cowardly  to  tell  false- 
hoods. And  my  mother  always  told  me  that  if  I  would  come 
straight  to  her  and  tell  her  anything  that  I  had  done,  she 
would  not  punish  me  for  it.  So  I  had  no  fear  of  punishment 
for  telling  the  truth." 

A  second  girl  writes:  "My  parents  were  very  sympa- 
thetic and  often  told  me  that  if  I  had  done  wrong,  they  would 
be  much  happier  if  I  told  them  about  it  than  if  I  tried  to  hide 
it.  In  this  way  I  grew  to  confide  in  them  and  never  remember 
of  telling  a  falsehood  merely  for  fear  of  punishment." 

The  fact  that  parents  have  confidence  in  a  child,  and  let 
him  know  it  is  extremely  helpful.  This  is  especially  true 
of  boys  who  respond  most  readily  when  placed  upon  their 
honor.  Here  are  two  incidents  showing  a  helpful  relation  be- 
tween mother  and  daughter : 


15 

1.  "It  seemed  to  me  a  very  great  wrong  to  lie,  and  I 
seldom  did  it  consciously.  My  mother  often  mentioned  this 
because  there  had  not  been  so  strong  a  tendency  in  the  older 
children.  This  commendation  and  the  fact  that  mamma  and 
I  were  very  near    *    *    made  truth-telling  easier/' 

2.  "As  a  child  I  had  a  reputation  for  truthfulness.  I 
was  truthful  because  my  parents  taught  me  that  a  falsehood 
was  the  worst  wrong  I  could  commit.  Then,  too,  my  mother 
always  said  she  could  trust  me  to  tell  the  truth,  and  I  felt  in 
duty  bound  to  keep  my  good  reputation.  Many  times  when 
I  had  done  something  that  was  wrong  my  mother  would  ask 
me  if  I  had  done  it,  and  would  say,  'Now,  I  am  sure  you  will 
tell  me  the  truth  about  this/  and  I  would  feel  that  I  must  tell 
the  truth,  even  though  I  expected  to  be  punished  for  my 
wrong." 

In  many  instances  there  is  a  great  difference  in  the  in- 
fluence of  the  two  parents.  In  the  following  case  the  mother 
helps  and  the  father  hinders  their  daughter's  development  of 
truthful  habits.  "Fear  of  punishment  from  an  overly  severe 
father  caused  me  often  to  tell  falsehoods  to  him,  when  if 
questioned  by  my  mother  I  should  not  have  hesitated  to  tell 
the  truth." 

In  the  next  case  the  father  helps  and  the  mother  hinders : 

"I  was  more  liable  to  tell  falsehoods  to  my  mother  than 
to  my  father.  I  never  remember  telling  my  father  but  one  lie. 
This  he  spoke  to  me  about  in  a  grave,  sympathetic  way  which 
impressed  me  very  much  more  than  the  whipping  or  scrub- 
bings  of  my  mouth  administered  by  my  mother." 

Of  all  the  experiences  I  have  gathered  the  next  and  last 
to  be  cited  on  the  influences  making  toward  truth  shows 


16  STATE    NORMAL    SCHOOL, 

most  strikingly  the  crime  of  misjudging  a  little  child.  The 
writer  is  a  most  worthy  young  woman,  who  is  now  struggling 
for  an  education.     She  says: 

"Another  thing  that  helped  me  was  to  try  and  keep  the 
confidence  people  respected  in  me.  People  that  I  love  did  and 
still  do  have  a  great  deal  of  influence  upon  me.  When  about 
nine  years  of  age  I  was  severely  punished  for  telling  a  lie 
which  I  never  told.  After  that  I  began  to  lose  confidence  in 
people,  for  I  was  placed  out  in  the  world,  and  seeing  how 
man}^  heartless,  cold  people  never  trusted  or  believed  me,  I 
would  often  lose  my  pride,  and  say,  fOh,  I  don't  care/  and 
would  then  give  them  something  to  distrust  me  for  by  acting 
or  telling  slight  squibs.  And  yet  if  ever  questioned  my  con- 
science has  always  ruled.  *  *  I  may  add,"  she  says,  "that  I 
do  think  that  with  a  child,  one  gets  as  much  confidence  as  one 
gives." 

HOW  DO  CHILDREN  LEARN  TO  LIE? 

Dr.  Hall  in  his  famous  paper  on  "Children's  Lies,"  has 
pointed  out  that  the  motives  differ,  and  in  order  to  effect  a 
cure  you  must  treat  the  cause,  not  the  lie  itself.  Hence  treat- 
ment that  would  be  good  for  one  child  might  increase  the  evil 
in  another  case.  Our  last  example  under  truth  showed  how 
unjust  treatment  might  lead  a  truthful  child  into  lying. 

From  the  child's  standpoint  the  motives  for  lying  may 
be  summed  up  under  three  heads — necessity,  thoughtlessness 
or  lack  of  control,  and  "fun"  or  imagination. 

Under  necessity  the  child  would  include  those  lies  told 
for  fear  of  punishment,  of  some  one's  displeasure,  or  of  a 


GREELEY,    COLORADO.  17 

scolding;  to  avoid  shame  or  mental  pain  as  in  the  case  of  a 
very  sensitive  child ;  to  please  some  one,  or  to  shield  another, 
the  "lie  heroic"  of  Dr.  Hall ;  to  avoid  answering  an  imperti- 
nent question,  especially  if  asked  by  a  stranger,  a  tramp  or  a 
peddler;  to  gain  something,  as  to  avoid  work,  win  a  game  or 
go  a-fishing. 

Under  thoughtlessness  are  those  impulsive  misstatements 
or  slight  deviations  from  the  truth  often  made  by  very  young 
children,  either  because  it  slips  out  or,  as  they  say,  "because  I 
didn't  think,"  or  because  of  lack  of  experience.  In  the  latter 
case  it  is  very  likely  to  be  due  to  a  wrong  impression  the  child 
has  received. 

Under  "fun"  the  child  puts  the  little  stories  he  tells  to 
produce  an  effect  on  another,  as  of  astonishment,  surprise,  or 
excitement,  or  those  told  in  his  play  when  he  is  led  by  his 
fancy  till  he  really  believes  his  own  tales. 

First  a  few  incidents  showing  how  children  are  forced 
into  lying  from  fear  of  punishment. 

"I  was  always  taught,"  says  one  young  lady,  "that 
a  liar  was  the  worst  possible  thing  and  under  ordinary  cir- 
cumstances it  did  not  occur  to  me  to  tell  anything  but  the 
truth.  However,  I  did  not  hesitate  to  tell  a  lie  when  I  thought 
it  necessary  as  I  will  explain  later."  Explanation :  "At  the 
age  of  seven  my  mother  died  and  those  who  had  charge  of  me 
for  several  years  after  that  punished  me  very  severely  and 
often  for  trivial  things.  Consequently  my  fear  of  punishment 
was  great,  and  I  would  tell  a  lie  any  time  to  avoid  punish- 
ment." 

Teachers  who  hold  up  the  same  standard  of  morals  for 
the  child  and  adult  will  do  well  to  ponder  the  reason  of  the 


18 

little  girl  who  writes :  "Once  when  I  was  about  ten  years  old 
I  was  asked  about  something  which  happened  at  school.  What 
was  the  reason  for  doing  a  certain  thing?  I  gave  an  untruth- 
ful answer  because  I  thought  that  what  had  seemed  reason 
enough  to  me,  would  not  seem  so  to  others.  I  felt  justified 
in  giving  what  I  thought  would  appear  to  them  to  be  a  suf- 
ficient reason." 

It  is  very  common  for  brother  and  sister  to  lie  to  help 
each  other.  In  the  following  incident  the  sister  says:  "I 
told  falsehoods  to  keep  from  being  punished  for  wrong-doing. 
I  told  lies  to  shield  my  brother;  we  were  in  the  same  room 
together,  and  we  had  the  understanding  between  us  that 
neither  would  tell  on  the  other  even  if  we  had  to  lie  to  keep 
from  doing  so." 

More  unusual,  though  not  infrequent,  is  ,the  kind  of  con- 
spiracy described  in  the  following:  "When  I  was  nine  years 
old  a  group  of  boys  and  girls  were  continually  together,  and 
we  would  tell  anything  rather  than  cause  this  group  trouble. 
We  would  go  and  play  after  school,  then  tell  that  we  had  to 
stay  in.  If  our  mothers  asked  some  other  one  in  the  group 
she  would  hear  the  same  story.  'We  had  to  stay  in  for  not 
knowing  our  spelling  lesson/  was  our  great  excuse." 

Some  children  lie  because  they  are  unusually  sensitive 
about  the  opinions  of  others.  One  girl  thinks  she  "fixed  up 
stories  more  because  she  hated  to  hear  mamma  scold  or  tell 
papa  or  any  one  what  she  did  or  didn't  do."  The  next  inci- 
dent brings  out  the  adolescent  traits  of  a  boy: 

"Another  reason  of  some  lies  later  in  life  was  the  fact 
that  I  was  very  much  ashamed  in  what  I  had  done,  and  shrank 


GREELEY,    COLORADO.  19 

from  the  ridicule,  censure,  or  talk  which  would  ensue  from 
such  knowledge.  Comparatively  recently,"  he  writes,  "I  lied 
to  shield  another  as  well  as  myself  from  talk  and  fun  at  our 
expense." 

One  of  our  most  capable  as  well  as  most  conscientious 
senior  teachers  shows  the  same  traits  in  the  following  account 
of  her  childish  falsehood : 

"My  mother  sent  me  to  gather  apples  under  the  tree. 
There  were  none,  so  I  picked  some  green  ones  from  the  tree, 
for  I  knew  she  wanted  some  very  much.  When  I  took  them 
to  her  she  said,  'You  picked  these,  didn't  you?'  And  I  said 
'No/  This  incident  haunted  me  for  years.  My  reasons  for 
saying  no  were  desire  for  her  approval  and  moral  cowardice." 

Here  are  two  cases  of  lying  for  gain : 

1.  "When  there  was  work  to  do,  I  was  often  sick  till  it 
was  done.  The  'dishes-ache',  mamma  called  it,  for  when  the 
dishes  were  done,  I  would  play  as  hard  as  the  rest  of  the 
children." 

2.  The  second  girl  whom  I  quote  on  lying  for  gain  also 
makes  a  fine  distinction  in  the  person  to  whom  she  was 
speaking : 

"I  remember  that,  as  a  child,  I  regarded  truth  as  a  neces- 
sity to  elders,"  she  writes  (though  sometimes  she  lied  to  these 
because  of  fear  of  punishment),  but  oftener  I  used  falsehoods 
with  my  playmates.  If  I  found  that  a  game  which  we  were 
playing  was  not  going  to  turn  out  in  my  favor,  I  would  in- 
stitute a  new  rule  in  the  game  which  had  never  been  there 
before,  but  which  was  now  advantageous  to  me." 

The  school  offers  many  temptations,  some  in  the  form  of 
associates  with  bad  habits,  some  because  of  conditions  which 


20  STATE    NORMAL    SCHOOL, 

thoughtless  or  blundering  teachers  or  exacting  and  unsympa- 
thetic school  officials  force  upon  the  child.  Our  witnesses 
are  six  young  women : 

1.  "I  think  as  a  small  child  I  never  told  a  falsehood  up 
to  the  time  I  started  to  school,  when  I  was  six  years  of  age." 

2.  "The  first  lie  I  remember  telling  was  when  I  was  in 
school  the  first  year.  It  was  told  through  fright  caused  by 
a  great  threatening  story  told  me  by  my  seatmate.  Later  I 
told  fibs  of  a  certain  kind  because  I  thought  it  the  'fashion- 
able' thing  to  do." 

3.  "Until  I  was  eight  years  old  I  had  the  reputation  of 
being  truthful  because  I  did  not  know  what  a  lie  was,  for  I 
had  never  been  told  what  deception  or  falsehood  was.  The 
positive  side  of  my  nature  had  been  developed,  and  the  nega- 
tive simply  left  alone.  But  when  I  went  to  school  I  soon 
found  out  what  falsehood  was." 

4.  "Then,  too,  in  school  affairs  I  was  sometimes  com- 
pelled to  tell  falsehoods  in  order  to  shield  a  group,  or  be 
branded  by  the  disgraceful  epithet,  'tattle-tale.' " 

5.  "To  shield  myself  from  a  scolding  for  an  unprepared 
lesson,  by  saying  I  was  prepared." 

6.  "I  remember  one  time  saying  I  had  practiced  my 
music  when  I  had  not  through  fear  of  punishment.  This 
story  was  told  at  the  suggestion  of  a  playmate  who  wished  me 
to  play  with  her  after  school." 

Some  children  are  very  much  like  automatons  in  their 
statements.  You  make  your  suggestion,  and  you  get  your 
answer.  Such  cases  need  very  careful  treatment,  or  the  child 
will  be  forced  into  the  wrong  attitude.  Some  mothers  by 
blaming  too  severely  such  impulsive  and  unintentional  mis- 
statements alienate  the  child's  natural  confidence. 


GREELEY,    COLORADO.  21 

A  girl  speaks  of  such  misstatements  as  follows :  "I 
have  told  them  at  times,  not  for  any  reason ;  just  be  asked  a 
question  and  answer  'no*  or  'yes'  when  it  was  a  lie,  and  not 
realize  until  later." 

The  thoughtless  lie  followed  by  regret  is  described  by 
a  college  man  thus :  "About  some  things  I  was  always  very 
truthful,  such  as  describing  something  or  telling  something 
I  had  time  to  think  about,  but  on  the  spur  of  the  moment  I 
would  always  lie.  Example :  When  at  my  uncle's  when  about 
12,  he  asked  me  if  I  had  been  swimming.  I  said  'no*  and 
stuck  to  it.    Although  sorry,  I-  hated  to  own  up." 

How  a  sympathetic  father  treated  his  daughter  in  such 
a  case  our  next  shows.  "When  about  10  years  old  I  fre- 
quently told  wrongly  things  I  had  heard,  because  I  had  been 
wrongly  impressed  or  had  forgotten,  or  sometimes  influenced 
by  imagination.  This  occurred  rather  frequently,  and  instead 
of  accusing  me  of  telling  a  falsehood  father  would  say :  fYou 
have  again  the  bell  and  knew  not  where  it  hung/  I  feared 
others  might  think  I  was  telling  falsehoods  so  I  became  very 
careful  to  be  exact  in  telling  the  truth." 

Children  sometimes,  like  you  and  I,  say  things  for  fun, 
when  they  do  not  expect  to  be  fully  believed.  Like  some  of 
us,  at  least,  they  are  led  away  to  extravagant  statements 
when  speaking  of  things  they  have  done,  and  describe  in  too 
glowing  terms  things  which  belong  to  "me"  or  to  "my 
father." 

This  is  the  way  one  young  lady  speaks  of  her  imagin- 
ative lies :  "I  remember  as  a  child  of  five  or  six  I  used  to  tell 
stories  that  I  made  up;  some  were  of  animals  that  tried  to 
hurt  me  coming  home  from  school.  And  I  used  to  like  to 
exaggerate  telling  my  little  school  mates  of  the  wonderful 
things  I  had  at  home." 


22  STATE    NORMAL    SCHOOL, 

Another  girl  writes:  "I  would  also  tell  falsehoods  to 
excite  people.  I  remember  once  of  walking  along  the  bank  of 
a  small  lake,  and  saw  a  dead  muskrat  floating  along  on  the 
surface  of  the  water.  I  knew  what  it  was,  of  course,  but  the 
idea  occurred  to  me  that  it  looked  like  the  brown  hair  of  a 
child.  So  I  hastened  and  told  my  father  and  mother,  who 
became  excited  and  ran  to  the  shore  to  see  in  the  water  only 
a  dead  muskrat," 

Often  this  condition  may  have  a  provoking  cause  in  the 
jealousy  of  a  playmate.  "I  have  always  had  a  lively  imagin- 
ation/' is  reported  by  a  young  woman.  "When  I  was  10  or 
11  years  old  I  had  a  little  friend,  about  my  own  age,  who  was 
always  telling  about  the  wonderful  things  she  had  had  or 
was  going  to  have  sometime.  Of  course  I  didn't  want  to  be 
outdone,  and  it  soon  came  to  be  a  question  as  to  who  could 
tell  the  biggest  story.  In  this  way  my  imagination  got  to 
running  away  with  me,  and  I  would  think  of  something  until 
it  really  seemed  that  it  had  happened,  and  I  would  tell  it  in 
perfect  sincerity,  not  dreaming  that  I  was  telling  a  false- 
hood." 

In  summing  up,  let  me  first  remind  you  that  all  this  ex- 
perience has  belonged  to  as  moral  a  body  of  young  men  and 
women  as  the  state  of  Colorado  can  show.  Yet  all  of  them 
acknowledge  that  at  some  time  they  have  told  falsehoods, 
many  even  were  notorious  liars  when  children.  Now  they 
are  just  as  truthful  as  you  and  I.  Either  their  early  faults 
were  not  as  abominable  as  we  sometimes  consider  them,  or 
somewhere  between  10  and  20  a  new  influence  has  come  in; 
things  have  been  seen  in  truer  relations,  and  life  felt  in  a 
deeper  sense. 


23 

I  would  not  imply  that  untruthful  habits  are  not  a  great 
menace,  but  that  in  individual  cases  we  are  often  over-anxious. 
That  there  is  great  danger,  if  the  right  attitude  toward  truth 
is  not  taught,  no  one  will  deny.  For  this  reason  teachers 
have  a  peculiar  responsibility,  for  children  in  their  first  year 
at  school  are  often  under  the  influence  for  the  first  time  of 
misguided  playmates;  and  all  through  their  school  life  they 
are  subjected  to  such  conditions  of  discipline  and  promotion 
that  it  often  seems  to  the  child  necessary  to  lie. 

Finally,  the  attitude  toward  truthfulness  differs  very 
greatly  with  different  children,  but  in  the  main  is  determined 
by  older  persons.  On  the  whole  parents  and  teachers  are  more 
to  blame  for  most  falsehoods  than  are  the  children  who  tell 
them. 

Fear  in  some  form  is  the  strongest  motive  commonly 
used,  both  in  maintaining  the  truth  and  in  forcing  a  lie  in 
critical  cases.  This  is  due  to  the  nature  of  the  teaching,  as 
shown  in  the  George  Washington  story,  the  religious  teaching 
and  in  the  over-emphasis,  on  the  part  of  many  parents,  of  the 
petty  faults  of  children.  Fear  causes  more  lies  than  it  pre- 
vents, and  it  restrains  only  as  long  as  the  fear  of  a  particular 
punishment  lasts.  Its  moral  value  in  most  cases  is  slight, 
and  therefore  appeals  to  fear  are  on  the  whole  to  be  de- 
precated. 

The  natural  position  of  the  child  is  ignorance  of  the 
nature  of  truth  as  well  as  of  the  opposite;  and  if  the  atti- 
tude of  the  parent  and  teacher  is  what  it  should  be,  the  child 
will  have  little  or  no  occasion  for  anything  but  the  truth. 

Sympathetic  treatment,  which  takes  the  child's  stand- 
point, recognizes  his  weakness  and  his  motives,  and  deals  no 


24  STATE    NORMAL    SCHOOL, 

punishment  more  severe  than  these  merit,  is  to  be  desired. 
To  borrow  again  the  thoughtful  words  of  one  of  my  students : 
"I  think  that  with  a  child  one  gets  as  much  confidence  as  one 
gives." 


A  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Of  the  best  articles  on  this  subject: 

1  HALL,  G.  STANLEY.    Children's  Lies.    Pedagogical  Seminary, 

Vol.  1.,  pp.  211-218. 

This  classifies  the  falsehoods  of  children,  according  to  the 
motives  underlying,  and  suggests  ways  of  dealing  with  different 
cases.  In  brief,  it  is  to  remove  the  cause  instead  of  punishing 
for  the  lie  directingly. 

2  CHENERY,  SUSAN.     Chapter  II.,  in  "As  the  Twig  is  Bent,  a 

story  for  mothers  and  teachers." 

The  importance  of  a  truthful  example  on  the  part  of  parent 
or  teacher  is  emphasized.  Here  the  mother  is  represented  as 
taking  the  utmost  pains  to  avoid  the  appearance  even  of  doing 
anything  which  her  young  critic  might  consider  a  breach  of  faith. 

8  BARNES,  EARLE.    Children's  Sense  of  Truth.     Studies  in  Ed- 
ucation, Vol  II.,  pp.  308-313. 

This  study  concludes  that  children  are  untruthful  because  of 
immaturity,  the  necessity  of  social  adjustment,  or  because  of 
the  nature  of  their  affection  for  another,  and  pedagogical  sug- 
gestions based  on  these  conclusions  are  made. 

4  SWIFT,  EDGAR  J.     Education,  Vol  XVIL,  pp.  163-164. 

Points  out  the  futility  of  using  fear  to  develop  habits  of  truth- 
fulness. 


THE  LIBRARY  OF  THE 

DEC  9- V 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 


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